Leonard Smalls

Played at Rebellion Festival in Blackpool yesterday... It's a big old venue! We were in the Arena. Onstage sound wasn't particularly good - I had an Ampeg fridge which had no definition and was either too loud or too quiet , the volume knob just seemed to jump from one to the other! And there was also terrible FOH sound - the room was very echoey so the engineer presumably tried to compensate by turning everything up, which meant feedback from the bass drum mic and absolutely no defined bass, which is a shame as we're a two bass band! However, we played well, though our guitarist completely forgot what to play in one song... There was a reasonable crowd and nobody threw anything. Also had the pleasure of meeting @cheddatom and seeing his band, Headsticks, who were most excellent - in my top three of the day (with Splodgenessabounds and Culture Shock). Today, looking forward to Spizz Energi.

Cheers! I suspect I may be in a tiny minority using a phat Bootsy sound though...

Tomorrow I'll be using the Rebellion-supplied Ampeg 8x10 and SVT, but FOH will be getting an XLR output from my Helix. That way they'll be getting what I know, rather than trying to work out how to get the best sound out of an unknown amp/cab combo...

And don't forget the GoGo crew...

You'll need to know some Parliament/Funkadelic/Bootsy'sRubberBand!

They're still going!

All of the bands I've been in (bar one, which was hard rock from the outset) have been a "let's see what happens" sort of thing... One band had a jazz-funk drummer, punk mohican singer, blues keyboardist, heavy metal guitarist and me (into anything groovy and out-there); we produced a sort of James Chance and the Contortions meet Butthole Surfers noise... Current band has a hardcore punk singer, classic old-skool punk bass player, me as other bass player-come-widdle-fest-merchant, a guitarist into psychedelia and Hendrix and 70s rock inspired drummer. As a result we don't really sound like any of the other bands on the punk circuit; we have 6 minute songs based on an Ornette Coleman riff, 1 minute 50second punk bangers with slap bass solo, slow chuggy grunge numbers with a tango based chorus, phrygian jazzy middle 8 and double speed rockabilly ending... So I reckon that if you decide in advance exactly what you'll sound like, that's what you're likely to do but you're less likely to produce anything off-the-wall and ever so slightly crazed...

Crazy Djent/Jazz thing...

Next gig for us, Thursday 3rd August at Rebellion Fest in Blackpool. We'll be hoping to accompany the dancers on Strictly at the same venue at some point in the future...

There's quite a few! Vice Squad, Plasmatics, Amyl and the Sniffers, Ctl Drp, Ginjer, Choked (my band!) for a start. And Rolo Tomassi rock a bit!

If he'd listened in school rather than noodling away on his guitar all day he could... All he'd need would be some rust, a bit of aluminium powder and a sparkler.

Was a 2cv so no probs!

It was a great place to play, and the first time I'd even been to Birmingham...

I remember playing Edward's Number 8 back in the early 90s supporting Gaye Bykers, that was the furthest north Barf Roco ever got!

I was a proper man's man back in the day... There was also a little blue cocktail dress, a 50s swimming cozzie and a wedding dress.

And nearby, the Doors "The Lickey End"

And of course, The Lady in Redditch...

The Killing Joke classic "Turn to Redditch"

I worked there in 1986 for 6 months, though it was the Three Kings by then! There were 13 bar staff on a Saturday night, and 'twas completely rammed, but there was no live music. We got paid £1.90 an hour, and I remember the landlord asking after one busy shift if we wanted to stay for a drink afterwards. Most of us agreed, then he insisted we paid for our drinks! We didn't stay next time he asked.

Get a 4! If it's good enough for Jaco... Etc etc 😁

And talking of Chapel Lawn, I played there a few of times, once with Bang Bang Romeo (who went on to bigger things, someone from here played bass on their last tour?), and twice with Dredd and the Badass Weeds...

The only knee trembling going on in Chapel Lawn now is if someone's forgotten their walking stick 😁

Funkin' On! Crackin' bass too...

A few years ago my last band were playing at the White Horse in Clun, Shropshire - they don't often do music but for some reason had booked us, a hard rock originals band. We were a couple of songs into the set when a coach load of young farmers turned up; the girls promptly went to the (tiny) loo, which was right next to where we were playing. As Tim was in the middle of a solo, guitar held aloft with pained guitar-solo face and closed-but-expressive eyes one of the farmeresses came and shouted in his ear "Can you do "Summer of 69" ?" To his credit, he held the note for a second longer, then nodded at us which we somehow understood to mean "stop", and launched into the "69" chorus on his own. We then continued with the song we'd been halfway through. And did the Young Farmers cheer? Nope... They'd gone outside to throw beer at each other.

I've taken to putting bright blue nail polish on the middle finger of my right hand especially to show people who ask for any songs at all. They'll get what they're given, and if they don't like it I can show them my blue-polished middle finger again...